More on Flash Based iPods?

[HiRez]

There's a huge market for this. I've talked about this to a few of my friends and they all said they would buy a flash iPod as fast as they could because they don't want/need the huge amounts of storage regular/photo/mini iPods provide.

The way I listen to music is to have a single mix of 30-100 songs that I listen to continuously. When I get new songs I'll mix them in and delete some of the ones I'm getting tired of. Maybe I'll throw in a few older tunes just for variety. Perhaps I'd even want to keep one or two complete CDs on there that I just bought. I have 40 GB of music but I just don't need to have all of it available at all times in a portable format. 1 GB would be perfect for my purposes, 512 MB is a little thin. The 4 GB (or 5 GB) Mini doesn't appeal to me because it's kind of in that neither here nor there territory: far too much space (and size and expense) for just my current mix, far too little to hold my entire library. I guess if all my music was in a very high bit rate that might be useful, but it's not. A tiny, 1 GB, flash-based iPod for $150 or less would be just perfect. They could probably do it for $100 if they really wanted to flood the market with them: go with a smaller screen, even USB 1.1 instead of FireWire or USB 2.0 would probably be ok since you aren't transferring that much data. No, they wouldn't make much profit on them, but it would ensure continued AAC/Fairplay domination in the face of the M$ challenge, growth of the iTMS, and most likely lead to increased sales of the larger iPods as well as people upgrade or suggest to/buy them for other friends and family members who have the need for more storage space and photo capabilities.

 

[NovacaineX]

Not everyone has huge 40gb music libraries. I could easily fit my music library onto 1gb. And if it was the cheapest ipod thatd the one i'd buy, no need for all that storage whe n iwont use it, even if it is a better deal. I'd buy a 1gb one for 150 in a flash.

 

[stephenli]

buy~buy~buy~

I still havent own a portable music player in my life (CD / MD / Flash....)
However I will be glad to pay if the new flash based device is $150, and of course, immediately.
Hello! iPod Micro <---would it be call like this?

 

[HiRez]

iPod Micro <---would it be call like this?

That's exactly what I was thinking. Or maybe iPod Express?

 

[asif786]

I can see Apple doing this, but there's two ways I think they could do it..

1) Only put like 128Mb of memory in it, and then market it as something that can hold your workout playlist or your driving playlist or whatever. They could emphasize the fact that it's designed for playlists, not entire libraries..

Fairly Unlikely, but then again, we dont know what Apple can do

2) A 1Gb Player. Carry 250 Songs in your pocket. I suppose it could work.

Name: iPod Express. Your Music. To Go. (<--catchy apple tagline )

 

[russed]

i think a mini ipod mini would be great. basically apple are wanting to take the full market of music downloads. to do that they need to reach all people. ... so they bring out a very cheep one to get the last third of the market in portable players, then they have wrapped up the download market.

the other day there were those runors about some new form of aac? like super compressed but still good quality. possibly this whould work with a 1gig flashed based player so enableling more tunes to be stored?

 

[AmigoMac]

it must be 1GB, no less, at $149? they can... iPod micro...

 

[MacSlut]

Don't forget about AAC+

Don't forget about AAC+

A search on Froogle yields CF cards as low as $60 for 1GB and $140 for 2GB. This is for single unit retail. Apple of course would be getting wholesale bulk pricing for huge volumes. With AAC+ these units would be more than sufficient for many users.

They would appeal to people not only with small collections, but people like me with collections so large they would need a 250GB+ iPod, but would settle for something cheap, fast and easy that they could refresh songs on.

 

[Kerruk]

Flash based ipods? Never.

But think of this:
The photo ipod lacks a way to download pictures (I know there's the slow Belkin' way) directly from a camera or any memorycard. I think you all can fill in the rest.

 

[Poff]

I KNEW it!

I've been waiting for this rumour since the terrible tuesday we just had!

Apple probably figured that a lot of the Christ-mass presents this year destined to be iPods, would end up as iPod flash instead.

When this thing comes out, I'll definitely buy one. 1GB for $149 is definitely out of the question at the moment. Maybe they're waiting till they can actually do that, which I guess will be somewhere in the beginning of 2005. (Flash prices go down all the time! I think Samsungs goal is to double the capacity and sell for same price each year.)


Edit: For all of you people talking about finding your $60 1GB flash-card on the net, know this:

• The internals of the iPod cost quite a bit, even when you remove the drive.
• Apple likes to have a huge profit-margin on their products.
• Research-costs have to be paid with iPod sales, aswell as salaries.
• Sony just released a 1GB flash-player. They didn't manage to price it lower than $200, though.
• Their 512MB player, however, got priced at about $130 or $140. There you've got at least a $60 difference between 512MB and 1Gb allready. (This does, of course, include a little extra for the shareholders of Sony aswell.)
• Cheap flash-memory means cheap quality!

 

[iGary]

Not.Happening.Ever.

 

[gorkonapple]

Apple is never going to release a 1GB flash iPod at $99, at least not until 1GB flash cards cost like $20. You'll be lucky if Apple even gives you 512MB for $99, but I could see them charging $149.

I too would love a flash iPod, because I really don't need my whole music collection with me. Plus, I know a bunch of people that want an iPod, but can't afford the $249 and up it costs to get one. A flash iPod priced at $99 would sell like crazy.

If your a careful shopper, you can get a 1 GB SD Card NOW for 20. I'd imagine if Apple was buying thousands of them they could bring it in for a price less then that.

 

[verces]

Jobs never openly said "No Flash iPods". His emphasis was on Video iPods. Which are ridiculous even to my petty knowledge.

However, as I said, 1GB with $149 Flash iPod is highly possible. Extending a new range obviously, iPod micro. They can't integrate this into the iPod mini brand. If they do, then they'll need to find a way to somehow put the mini price down but they can't and don't need to do that since the minis are currently flying off shelves.

iPod micro 1GB $149. This Christmas.

 

[Yvan256]

[...] A tiny, 1 GB, flash-based iPod for $150 or less would be just perfect. They could probably do it for $100 if they really wanted to flood the market with them: go with a smaller screen, even USB 1.1 instead of FireWire or USB 2.0 would probably be ok since you aren't transferring that much data.

Oh,believe me, you DON'T want to use USB1 to transfer your music, even if only for 1GB... If you have to wait over 12 minutes to fill up your iPod, it's not "user friendly".

I still think that NOT doing a new iPod (design, development, production) would keep the iPod mini/flash price down. Use the already existing iPod mini, put flash memory in it instead of a HD (if it's at all possible).

After all, Steve Jobs never complained about flash players because they were flash-based, but because they didn't have enough capacity to be useful.

Two months ago, my whole library could've fit onto an iPod mini, so perhaps a 1GB iPod would still be ok for other people (that's still 250 songs, or about 25 CDs at 10 songs each). 512MB just wouldn't be enough (125 songs, 12 CDs just doesn't sound right for marketing numbers are too low... But 250/25 for the 1GB sounds perfect, just like 1000/100 for the 4GB!)

The 1GB would also be nice for those huge playlists for on-the-go such as gym, rides, etc. After all, 1GB = 250 songs/25 CDs = more than 4 hours of music.

No, they wouldn't make much profit on them, but it would ensure continued AAC/Fairplay domination in the face of the M$ challenge, growth of the iTMS, and most likely lead to increased sales of the larger iPods as well as people upgrade or suggest to/buy them for other friends and family members who have the need for more storage space and photo capabilities.

Agreed, this should be their next focus (which, frankly, I thought would happen before/at the same time as the iPod photo). Even at zero profits (or barely), this should be their target.

It can cost more than the other players (say, 149~179$US instead of sub-100$US) but the iPod brand, iTunes integration, ITMS (if available) and superior 1GB capacity (instead of 128/256/512MB) would be enough to justify spending that ~50-80$US extra to get the iPod instead of a cheaper player.

That is, if they were planning on getting a *really* cheap flash player, since most Rio players already are at 149+$US for 128-512MB!

In which case, the price of the 1GB iPod would actually favor Apple! (for once)

 

[cube]

Just ignore

This guy is known for talking crap. He is known a "Miloonovich", or just "The Loon".

 

[Yvan256]

Don't forget about AAC+

A search on Froogle yields CF cards as low as $60 for 1GB and $140 for 2GB. This is for single unit retail. Apple of course would be getting wholesale bulk pricing for huge volumes. With AAC+ these units would be more than sufficient for many users.

They would appeal to people not only with small collections, but people like me with collections so large they would need a 250GB+ iPod, but would settle for something cheap, fast and easy that they could refresh songs on.

- Consumer prices support the possibility (at the very least for a 1GB iPod)
- AAC+ would "upgrade" all iPods capacities (by 30% if I read that correctly, by 126% if I read that wrong)
- iPod 1GB would fit, strangely enough, people with ~25 CDs libraries *and* people who can't even fit their libraries on a 40/60GB iPod/photo.

It seems it all depends on the cost of the iPod mini "shell" (all minus the HD) and Apple's willingness to enter the market.

Two things could happen at the introduction of the iPod micro:

iPod micro, 1GB, 129$US
iPod mini, 4GB, 199$US

or

iPod micro, 1GB, 149$US
iPod mini, 5GB, 249$US

I'm hoping for the first case, since both models cost less.

Edit: they *could* use the same shell for the mini and the micro, all they have to do is make another (single) color for the micro to differentiate the "brands". Make it.... I dunno... beige or grey.

After all, didn't they use that method back in the iMac G3 days? A specific color meant a model/speed? (I'm talking *after* the basic model with 5 colors, around the iMac DV era I think).

 

[BornAgainMac]

256 MB is fine

A strongly disagree from some of you that think that 1 GB is too small. If you go running with it then an hour of your favorite music is fine. You want it to be small, no movings, no skipping, and if it falls on the group that it doesn't break. Sometimes I just have it loop thru my favorite song or two anyways so I only need a fraction of that 1 GB.

If you need more than 1 GB, then use a harddrive-based player. The flash-based one isn't for you.

 

[Freg3000]

Definitely not before Christmas. Apple has set their iPod lineup, and they are not changing it with less than 2 months to go. iPods will fly off the shelves, flash iPod or not, so why intro it now? Wait until MWSF 05 and spur 1Q sales, which last year were better than 4Q Christmas sales.

 

[scottkle]

It would surprise me if it were 1 Gig. 2 Gig is out of the question. The price is simply too high.

Also remember something very important, while Steve has said it's all about the music --- and now about the photos -- remember what else is most popular these days: Little flash-based drives that you carry everywhere.

If Apple goes through with a 1GB iPod, even for those who think that's not enough for music, they can carry it around -- smaller than the current minis, I would think -- and use it also as a flash based drive. Those keychain ones are everywhere, but they aren't the status symbol that a mini-mini iPod could be. Has anyone thought of that? I wouldn't need it for music, but I'd be first in line for one as a tiny storage device.

 

[Jovian9]

It sure would, considering that you pay nearly that much for 1GB of flash without the iPod.

I'm not completely sure....but weren't the 4GB drives used in the iPod Mini's more expensive than the minis themselves when they were first introduced. I seem to recall reading about people buying minis just to rip the drives out.

 

[Fat_Tonie]

meh, i don't like flash players for my purposes, but if apple did it right (like they would), i can see alot of people springing for a flash based iPod with anywhere from 512mb-1gb of space.
on one news post on this subject, it said that apple had been confirmed to buy the flash CONTROLERS. this could mean either a) flash based ipod, or b) new flash controllers for reg. ipods, prolly more flash memory built in.
the new ipod photo has 17 mins of skip protection as opposed to the 25 of the regular ipods (and mini). what is up with that, does anyone know?

edit: another thought, apple just had a music/ipod event. it's getting close to christmas, don't you think they would have released the "flash ipod" there along with the ipod photo/u2 ipod?
strange, i doubt they are making a flash ipod anytime this year.

The iPod mini is nothing more than a flash player. The storage in it is a 4 gig compact flash card. Why do you think they were flying off the shelves? Photographers were buying it because that same card that is in there cost like $400 at the time by itself. If they bought the iPod mini it saved them $200.

 

[FallPod]

"It's curious that Apple's not rushing this out the door for Christmas,"

Not really. With the new photo ipods and with the minis finally available in mass quantities Apple doesn't want to over load the market and compete against itself.

No,it will wait til Spring when everybody has invested in another ipod/mp3 player and then introduce the flash player to the frustration of many.

I bet spring brings a new ipod product...like the flash player...then summer sees a G2 mini. Fall, another tweak to the 4G family (how about a black 20GB w/ color screen and 15-18 hr battery for $325 to blow away any remaining competition?).

 

[DavidLeblond]

If they announced a flash based iPod, I'd preorder it the second after it was announced even if it was $150 for a 128 mb iPod.

Ok maybe thats a little extreme, but still... I want an iPod but not for $250.

 

[DavidLeblond]

The iPod mini is nothing more than a flash player. The storage in it is a 4 gig compact flash card. Why do you think they were flying off the shelves? Photographers were buying it because that same card that is in there cost like $400 at the time by itself. If they bought the iPod mini it saved them $200.

Huh? Maybe I'm screwed up because I just read the end of the discussion, but the iPod mini has a hard drive in it, not a flash card.

 

[AirUncleP]

Why not?

Just throwing this out.

How about a iPod shell that I could plug in my 1G compact flash card that I bought for my digital camera? Now that would be cool.